


all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen.

by fade131



Category: Big Bang (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, M/M, Selkies, im sorry top isn't in this one he just never showed up, sun cults i guess, the usual vague sort of intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 18:06:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11362791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fade131/pseuds/fade131
Summary: “How did you get out here?” he asks, and the young man smiles, and his eyes are all black.“I was waiting for you.”





	all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen.

Daesung’s out on the water when the clouds roll in, dark and forbidding, the wind picking up in a whistling howl. He doesn’t want to, but the quickly darkening sky makes the decision for him – he hauls in his nets, turns back towards shore. The rain starts as he’s hauling the little boat up onto the sand, coming down hard and fast, but he ignores it, makes sure his boat is tied in case the waves come high. He shoulders the cooler with his catch – small, today, but that was alright – and heads up the rickety stairs that lead from the beach to the headland, protruding out beyond the little bay, to where his house sits low against the base of the stark tower of the lighthouse, the light at the top long snuffed out, battered now by the wind and the driving rain, silhouetted against the blackened sky.

He sits on a stool on the little porch, the overhang of the roof mostly protecting him from the rain while he cleans and guts the fish, going through the motions mechanically, ignoring the way the rain has plastered his shirt and pants to his skin, the way his hair drips slightly salty water into his eyes. When the work is done, he rinses his hands in the bucket of rainwater gathering at the side of the house, and heads inside without a second look at the beach, the crashing waves, the rage of the storm. He puts away his fresh catch and changes into dry clothes, spends his time in cleaning up, before making himself dinner and settling in with a book, reading until darkness truly comes. The storm still rages outside, but he turns off the lamp beside his bed, and goes to sleep.

In the morning, the storm has calmed. The sea is a cool, flat expanse of grey, and Daesung goes out to the end of the headland, looking down off the cliff at the water, still and smooth as glass. The lighthouse is a pillar behind him, spiraled red and white, and he looks back at it for a moment, at the glass enclosure at the top. He shakes his head, to rouse himself from his pensive mood, and moves to head down to the beach – and sees something down there, on rocks that climb up from the small stretch of sand, beside the beached hulk of his boat. Curious, he heads down to the beach, forgetting his plans for the day.

On the rocks, at first he’s not sure what he saw from above, not sure where to find it – but there, just above the tideline, caught on the rocks, is something he’s never seen before. He steps closer, pulls it free gently, careful not to let the ocean pull it from his hands even when the weight of it surprises him. Fabric, he thinks first, like a bolt of leather, but then he corrects himself – skin, sealskin, smooth and soft and slick, grey and black and heavy. At first he thinks, he wonders if some fisherman killed on, cleaned it, tossed the skin overboard – but why? And so cleanly cut, perfect almost but for being empty…

He notices something out of the corner of his eye and he knows what it will be, he thinks, before he really looks – and it is, further up the rocks, the thing he saw from above, a body draped across the stone as if it had been deposited there tenderly. He steps closer, carefully, eyes roaming over – _him_ , he’s breathing, thin chest rising and falling, skin pale under the brightening sun, brown hair drying stringy from the salt. Daesung’s thoughts race and he moves, quickly, perhaps without really considering his actions, moves to his boat and opens the trap door in the deck, folding the skin and placing it there, where it will be safe, he tells himself, then goes back – back to the young man, naked on the rocks.

Daesung is lucky, he’s not heavy – he’s almost distressingly light, easily carried, and it takes him no real effort to bring the young man up the wooden staircase onto the headland, to carry him back to the house. The young man doesn’t wake for this, and Daesung puts him in his bed, covers him, banks the fire in the room to warm him.

At first he thinks, the young man will wake up soon, shouldn’t take long. He stays close to the house, hangs out his latest catch to dry, starts up a simple broth with the last of his vegetables (it’s okay, he thinks, the preacher should be coming through soon) and sits out on the porch, close to the bedroom window, does his washing and strings it up on the line that stretches between the house and the lighthouse tower. He has to go down to the boat, to check on it and get some things he left behind in the rain, and something makes him take the skin from the hold. He brings it back up to the headland with him, and there’s hesitation here too – something tells him he can’t leave it just anywhere. Without really considering why, he brings it to the place where he keeps his most important things (his identity card, the picture a smiling little baby face, yellowing and old; the photo of his family, stained with blood at the corner; keys to the car that would never drive again; the gun) and he puts the folded sealskin there too, where it will be safe from prying eyes.

He’s worried, when the young man doesn’t wake up by the end of the day, checks his pulse and his temperature (he seems fine, doesn’t he? It’s concerning) but he’s too worried to try to rouse him, so he leaves him be, reads in his living room, the lamplight flickering against the walls.

It’s late when Daesung thinks he hears something, gets up from the sofa, hesitating before he brings the lamp with him. His bedroom is quiet, empty, covers pulled back, and he stares at them for as long moment, the moonlight painting the room with unearthly blue light, the curtains fluttering in the breeze, the salt air of the ocean filling the room. He turns to look around the room, as if there’s something he hasn’t seen, but it’s empty – the house is empty too, although he goes through every room, worried, curious – he’s looking for something, someone, they ought to be here…

Outside, the moon is large and bright, and the light atop the tower flashes, slow and steady. Daesung frowns up at it for a moment, confused, but then he hears the noise again (his name, someone is calling his name) so he turns away. The headland is longer than he remembers, but he wanders along the length of it, still looking, and it’s strange, the headland isn’t a headland now, it slopes down to meet the ocean, grass and scrub giving way to sand, and that’s where Daesung finds him, standing at the edge of the water, waves lapping at his ankles.

“How did you get out here?” he asks, and the young man smiles, and his eyes are all black.

“I was waiting for you,” he murmurs, and his voice is strange, like an echo over the water.

Daesung shakes his head. “You should be resting, come back to the house…”

He tilts his head to the side, as if he’s looking behind Daesung, around him. “Where?”

There is nothing, only the sand beneath his feet, the ocean spreading out around them on all sides.

“My name is Jiyong,” he says, and Daesung lets out a soft breath, reaches up to push a hand through his hair.

The moon is falling steadily behind him, and he can see the red edge of dawn on the horizon beyond him – beyond Jiyong – the sun rising fast.

Jiyong is staring at him, eyes black and wet and wide, head still tilted delicately to the side. He looks less like the body Daesung put in his bed, skin sun-warmed and tanned, his hair falling long and wet from the ocean, wrapped in strange leather (sealskin, it’s sealskin). “Are you going to keep me?” he asks, quiet.

Daesung frowns, opening his mouth to answer—

And wakes up.

The sunlight is just creeping through the open windows, bright and warm, and he sits up, looking around – nothing seems out of place. He gets up slowly, hesitant (the shifting dream landscape, ethereal and unending, vivid in the back of his mind) and goes to his bedroom. The young man – Jiyong? – is still there, sleeping soundly, tangled in his sheets. Daesung starts to move away from the door, to leave him there to rest longer, to shake the confusion from his thoughts, but the body on the bed shifts, slowly, a frown crossing sleep-softened features, stretching and blinking his eyes open. Daesung is frozen for a long moment, before he comes closer, sitting on the edge of the bed, carefully.

“Where am I…?” the young man asks, frowning up at him, his expression open and innocent in its confusion.

And Daesung knows what he wants to say, but it’s not what comes out of his mouth. “You’re home,” he says quietly, reaching out to smooth back his hair, the brown strands still sticky from the salt.

Jiyong’s expression smooths out, his eyes clearing (brown, Daesung notes distantly, normal and soft and brown) and a smile spreads across his lips. There's a spark of something in his eyes, his expression, something like understanding, something. “Finally,” he whispers.

Daesung makes sure he eats (sparingly, Jiyong is almost incredulous of his food, curious but cautious, likes the broth more than the vegetables inside it, picking at the hunk of bread Daesung gave him with it, eating more once he discovers it tastes better dipped in the soup), has him take a shower to clean the salt from his hair, his skin, dresses Jiyong in his own clothes – they don’t fit him very well, but they’re not too small, so they’ll do for now, he thinks, and maybe the preacher can bring him something better for next time. He tends to his chores, and Jiyong follows him around the house, the headland, barefoot and curious, his smiles sweet and bright as he asks what this or that thing does, why Daesung is drying the fish, how the clothesline retracts all by itself, what the lighthouse tower is and why it’s there. He answers each as best as he can.

Daesung is making them dinner – fish, because Jiyong asked for it, is watching it cook with fascination – when there’s a knock at the door.

“Evening,” he says, cordial, when he opens the door to find the preacher there.

“Good evening, brother,” Youngbae replies, smiling placidly, and he’s just as he always is, as Daesung expects him to be – skin tanned almost as darkly as Daesung, hair cropped short under his dark hat, the sleeves of his clean button-up rolled to the elbow and the small sun medallion visible where his shirt is open at the chest. He has some of the others with him, a farm boy soothing the wagon horses now, two men calmly unloading barrels from the back (vegetables, he knows, meat, supplies he asked for the last time they came through).

Jiyong creeps up behind him, peeking around him, Daesung can hear his bare feet on the stone floor, and Youngbae’s smile gains a fixed sort of quality, lessening as he looks curiously past Daesung then at him, eyebrows arching. There’s nothing for it. Daesung keeps smiling, reaches back and draws Jiyong up beside him in the doorway, arm looped around his waist, hand resting warm and possessive on his hip.

“Jiyong, this is Youngbae,” he says, and Youngbae touches the brim of his hat politely. “He’s the preacher, down in the village.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Jiyong murmurs, and Youngbae smiles more honestly, warm and welcoming, although the look he sends Daesung speaks volumes, that he expects an explanation.

Later, when he brings Daesung into the tower with him, ostensibly to collect the dried fish he’s stored away for them, the preacher simply stops there while the other men collect the barrels, arms crossed.

“I found him,” Daesung explains, defensive. “He must have been out on the water when the storm hit, I almost didn’t make it to shore myself. He’s – he’ll be staying with me.”

Youngbae watches him for a little longer, serious, but in the end he nods, claps Daesung on the shoulder and heads them back out of the tower into the waning sunlight. “We’ll bring double next time, then. Will this be enough until next month?”

“We’ll make do,” Daesung says, quieter, almost relieved. “I’ve got plenty of fish, we’ll just… be careful with the rest. Are you sure the village can—”

“None of that, there’s plenty to go around,” the preacher interrupts, bright and warm, and they’re leaving now, the wagon packed carefully, waiting only for Youngbae – he brings Daesung close first, presses a kiss to his forehead and touches his medallion. “Be well, brother,” he says, quietly, and then they’re gone.

The next day he has more chores, and Jiyong helps him a little this time, curious and eager to learn. The day after that they get up with the sun, and Daesung takes him out on the boat, and the spend the morning fishing, hauling in a good catch. Daesung teaches him how to clean the fish, how to hang them to dry, how to cook them, and Jiyong is so pleased to learn, so pleased to be with him. He must know, he has to, but he never asks about the skin, and Daesung never tells him, and Daesung never dares to ask him where he came from – but somehow he never feels that silence between them, no secret, as if perhaps Jiyong really _doesn’t_ know it, really doesn’t realize what he’s missing, where he came from. Days turn to weeks, to months, and Jiyong becomes a part of his solitary habits, becomes integral to his days. He learns to cook simple things, learns how to mend the nets when they tear, learns how to tell when a storm is coming – and Daesung learns the warmth of his skin, the saltwater taste of it, learns the ways he likes to be touched, the sweet sounds he makes before he comes apart.

The preacher comes back again, once, twice, the usual deliveries, as Daesung expects. Like usual, he asks when Daesung will come into town, when he’ll come to service, when he’ll bring Jiyong in (“you can’t keep the poor thing to yourself”) and like usual, Daesung makes his excuses, there’s always work to do that keeps him here, maybe soon, maybe soon.

“Can we?” Jiyong asks, after he’s been there almost seven months, comfortable now, used to the routine. They’re watching the wagon trundle slowly back to the road, the path won rutted by the wheels.

“We’ll see,” Daesung responds, a little more gruffly than he intended, but Jiyong knows he doesn’t mean anything by it. He presses a kiss to Daesung’s lips, and draws him inside, nimble fingers finding the buttons on his shirt, and they end up tumbled on the soft carpet covering the stone floor of the living room, the fire burning low while Daesung explores the dips and planes of Jiyong’s body with lips and teeth and tongue.

When they do go, it’s been almost a year. Jiyong’s met many of the people from the village, anyway – they came through at different times, scavenging, hunting, the accompanied the preacher on his rounds – but he’s still curious, fascinated, wants to know more about the people who visit them, how they live, which must be different from Daesung’s lonely outpost by the sea.

They walk, because Daesung has no better way to get them there. The road, Jiyong has been on before – the slick slab of pavement stretching on into the distance, cracks filled with little weeds. He doesn’t ask who put it there, because Daesung hardly ever answers questions like that – nor does he ask about the rusting hulks that lay on either side of it, slowly being overtaken by the vegetation around them (they remind him of Daesung’s boat more than the wagon). They talk about what they’ll do in the village instead, and Daesung reluctantly agrees to take him to service in the morning, if only because Jiyong pleads so prettily.

The mess of trees and scrub along the sides of the road gives way to smaller roads, once, twice, barely more than dirt tracks into the woods, and down one of them Jiyong can see a house, points it out and Daesung tells him who lives there. Soon it’s farmland along the roadside, small plots, some tended and some not, houses in the distance, a family of horses wickers at them from atop a hill, a small herd of cows watches them go past with sleepy, dull eyes. Jiyong smiles, pets their soft noses, rushing ahead, eager to see more. The houses come closer together, abruptly, and they’re different from how Jiyong expected – many of them are empty, windows shattered, second and third stories caved in, the sky visible through broken windows that stare like empty eyes out onto the road. Still, others are in better repair, the ones that weren’t damaged, boards from falling down buildings used to close holes and shore up walls, every occupied house painted a cheery color. There aren’t many, the village isn’t very big, although it seems so to Jiyong (in the distance, the road stretches on and on, and they can’t see it from this angle but he sees it later, the way the road disappears as it heads off and away, the city rising up in the distance, broken towers like jagged knives thrusting up into the sky, empty, dark, desolate, and Daesung’s eyes linger there too long, until Jiyong pulls him back, pulls him away).

The centerpiece, he has to admit, is the meetinghouse. A large, squat white building, it might have been something unassuming in a past life, but now a spire had been erected on the roof, near the front, a slightly precarious affair that nonetheless manages to dutifully support the large metal sun perched atop it, copper and gleaming.

Daesung brings him along on his errands, visits the blacksmith about a part he needs, then the scavengers about supplies, and Jiyong lingers in the background, listening but staying quiet, curious but too shy around so many people. They have dinner with the family that lives in the largest house, painted a slapdash red on the outside, cozy on the inside. Their son is almost Daesung’s age, Jiyong thinks, but Daesung is too quiet, to serious for him – this boy is loud and brash and thoughtless, excitable, he wants to be friends and he wants to talk. Jiyong listens to him for a while after dinner, asks him questions to keep him going, but he’s too tired in the end to stay up much later, and these people are all so different from Daesung, so strange.

In the morning, they go to the service. It isn’t what he thought. The preacher is quiet, serious, calm, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes, beatific even as he speaks about humanity’s downfall, about the Great Sin of mankind. Daesung sits stone-faced and silent while the villagers recite their prayers and praise their gods. Jiyong watches them, watches him, watches everything, and deep down he doesn’t understand. Perhaps this sort of understanding simply isn’t for him, he thinks, distant, distracted – he wishes they were home, suddenly, as the preacher goes on, he wishes they were home, and he would climb to the top of the lighthouse tower and stare out across the slate grey of the sea, and his heart would be filled with longing. That is a kind of prayer, he thinks, that is the kind of prayer he understands.

Afterward, the preacher speaks with them – he’s glad to see them in town, glad to see them at the meetinghouse, hopes perhaps they’ll come more often. Daesung makes no promises, and Jiyong only thanks him, reticent, confused.

The walk home feels shorter, for which he’s grateful. He’s not sure he liked the trip, now that it’s over – something was just so _strange_ about the village, about the people there, and it made him feel even stranger. It wasn’t easy, like it was with Daesung. They had their silences, but they were comfortable, they understood each other, Daesung didn’t need him to be anything but himself, didn’t ask anything more from him than that. The others, they all watched him like they expected something, spoke to him as if he were an anomaly, as if he might be a threat, and he’d thought – he’d thought it would be different.

Back at the house, he climbs up the rusting spiral staircase inside the tower, sits on the walkway with his back against the salt-clouded glass, and watches the sea.

It’s quiet today, not still, but calm, slow waves rolling in, sun filtering down through the scattered clouds, painting streaks of light across the deep grey-blue of the water, and Jiyong gets lost, just watching it, eyes far away, everything quiet inside him and welling up with cold, desperate longing, the sting of it like ice in his veins, like some vital part of him has been cut away.

Daesung comes up to collect him eventually, and the look on his face is worried as he asks if Jiyong intends to come down for dinner. He laughs, and nods, and lets Daesung lead him back down the spiraling staircase.

Months turn into years, and they find a comfortable rhythm in their lives, spending most of their time at the house, out on the boat, simple and domestic, comfortable together. They go into the village only when it’s necessary, when they need to, and Jiyong likes the people well enough, makes friends with some of them even, but – they are strangers there, they are outside, even if they’re welcome, they never seem to fit. It doesn’t matter, Jiyong tells Daesung after one trip, after the disappointed look on Youngbae’s face when they told him they had to get back tonight, couldn’t stay for the service in the morning – it doesn’t matter if they fit there, because they fit together. Daesung smiles at that, the soft little quirk of lips that Jiyong knows is sincere.

Time, though, time makes some feelings grow stronger – Jiyong is torn, he thinks, standing up atop the lighthouse tower, hands on the ice cold metal railing that encircles the walkway, leaning out, leaning over, the wind blowing hard against him, whipping his hair around his face (Daesung says it’s getting long, he should let him cut it, but he likes the way it looks tied back, likes the way Daesung can wrap it around his fingers and _pull_ ). It’s so cold, the longing that’s settled into his bones, and sometimes he feels consumed by it, by the desperate, futile need for _something_ , something he can’t even name, and yet at the same time he knows he wants to be here, knows Daesung has his whole heart, and why would he want it any other way? They fit, they belong, and…

And the sea whispers to him, always calling, his name on the wind, in the crash of the waves. He leans out again, too far, the wind pushing him back, and if he fell from here he’d drop straight down into the waves that rush against the headland, and they would take him out to sea.

Daesung is a weight on him, but not one he resents – he’s an anchor, keeping Jiyong from giving himself to the waves, and that’s not a bad thing.

Midsummer of the third year, they go back to the village for Litha. They stay at the red house again, and now Jiyong and Seungri are friends, in their own fashion, and they spend the festival by the bonfire, laughing and chatting, while Daesung is off having serious conversations about food supplies and things like that. He gets caught up talking, reminiscing, and he looks comfortable for once, happy, so Jiyong leaves him be for now. It gets late, the fire burning high, and he and Seungri share a bottle of something sweet that burns when it goes down, Jiyong coughing and laughing at the first sip, and Seungri tells him that he’s sick of being here, tired of the isolation, the confusion, the restrictions. He doesn’t want to be trapped in this one place for always, stuck in this spot in time, unable to move forward, move past—

He doesn’t really explain, and Jiyong longs to ask, to finally understand what happened here, but he looks out down the road (the city is too dark, at night, to be visible, but he imagines it there, looming raggedly along the horizon) and he keeps the question to himself. He offers his thoughts instead, encouragements – if Seungri wants to leave, to be something different, to make his own path, even if he came back here in the end, he should do it. Just do it, don’t wait, because if he didn’t go then he never would.

Seungri laughs him up, but there’s something in his eyes that makes Jiyong think he’s taking him seriously.

They head back early in the morning, despite the late night, Daesung’s arm slung around his shoulders as they head out of town. The baker is the only person they see, feeding her chickens in the front lawn of her little spring green cottage, and Jiyong waves to her (she watches them, but she doesn’t wave back).

Two weeks later, the preacher comes to the house, much earlier than expected, rapping sharply on the door.

Daesung goes to answer it, leaving aside his mending, and Jiyong hesitates before setting aside the book he’d been reading, creeps silent across the floor, bare feet soft against the stone, presses himself flat against the wall near the kitchen door, listening.

The preacher speaks in a low, hard voice, serious and sincere and so terribly sad, as if what he's come to say pains him, and Daesung’s responses are so quiet at first, an odd tone to them, disbelief, and Jiyong frowns, struggling to hear them, considering if there’s a way he could get closer without being seen—

“—you brought this creature among us, and it’s brought only suffering, brother. Look at what’s happened – one of our brother’s has run away, the evil eye cast upon our sister’s house, and you have strayed far from the path of light, Daesung—”

“And that is not fault of his! He’s done nothing, Youngbae. You can’t blame him for, for foolishness, for superstition, these things aren’t his fault—”

“It is a monster, brother,” the preacher says, with that awful apology in his voice. “It is not a man.”

“Get out,” Daesung whispers, so quiet Jiyong almost doesn't catch it, and he's never heard Daesung sound like this, like a threat.

The preacher leaves without a fight, without an argument, with too many condescending words and hopeful prayers that Daesung will cast aside the shadow of his doubts, will free himself from the spell he's under. Jiyong is still for a moment, after the door clicks closed, then pads softly across the floor, back to his seat, and picks up his book, settling in. As if he heard nothing. As if he knew nothing.

Daesung apologizes when he comes back, a little awkward, uncertain. Jiyong looks up from his book, head tilting a little to the side, his expression open and innocent. “What was that about?” he asks, and Daesung shakes his head. 

“A misunderstanding,” he murmurs. 

They don't talk about it again.

But Jiyong doesn't forget. Their usual delivery from the village doesn't come, at the end of the month, but they've got food put aside, and he's started a little vegetable garden – nothing ambitious, just a small patch of easy things to tend, to see if they'll grow, out on the other side of the road where the soil is better. Daesung goes out alone on the boat, comes back with supplies, food, and Jiyong doesn't ask him where he went to get them, doesn't really care. He's seen all sorts of things on the days he's gone out fishing with Daesung, listing hulks of empty vessels, clusters of buildings along the coast, some hollowed out and silent, some with lights burning in Windows and people who ducked out of sight at the sound of their motor. It doesn't matter where Daesung has been. They keep going. They get by.

Jiyong can't let go of what he heard. Sometimes when he's up atop the tower, watching the sea and waiting for Daesung to come home, the words echo louder and louder in his head until he can't think of anything else. Creature. Monster. The preacher had sounded so sure. No one from the village has contacted them in weeks. Maybe he was what they said? He couldn't remember, he can't remember anything.

“Where did I come from?” he asks Daesung one afternoon, while they're doing the washing, Daesung scrubbing everything against the board, Jiyong rinsing it all and hanging it up to dry in the sun.

The look Daesung gives him is, for a moment, devastated. Aching.

“I told you,” he says softly, “you were shipwrecked in a storm. I found you on the beach.”

“Right,” Jiyong whispers, as if he remembers, nodding along. “Of course.”

The stairs up to the top of the lighthouse are uncertain, rusting through in places, and Daesung repairs them with wood where he can, but he's asked Jiyong not to go up there while he's not home – he does anyway, to stare at the sea. The next time he goes, alone, the yearning fills him up until he can't take it, until he thinks he must break apart from it, and he sinks to his knees on the walkway, hugging himself tight. The tears come without him even realizing, but before he knows it he's sobbing, a desperate, keening wail torn from his lips, and he's never hurt so badly, surely if he could cut this part of himself from his body it would be better this, hurt less than this.

The sea crashes against the headland, the rocks, loud, louder, _Jiyong, Jiyong, Jiyong_.

He gets up abruptly. It's not just the sea.

At first he thinks someone is calling him, but he would have seen Daesung’s boat come in, can see it's not down in the bay. There's no horse, no wagon near their door, no one would have walked here from the village, and when he goes down into the tower there's no one there. Rubbing at his eyes still, he steps back up onto the catwalk. The wind is loud, rushing around him, through him, but he can hear it still, his voice like a howl. He presses his back to the cloudy glass, breathing too fast, staring out at the water. How can he stop it? What is he supposed to do? What—

 _Jiyong_.

Behind him, just beside his ear, the softest whisper but he practically jumps – there's nothing, nothing. Drawn by some other force, some thought beyond his own, he moves to the door that leads into the glass enclosed top of the lighthouse. It's warmer inside, the wind whistling sharply through a crack in the glass. _Jiyong_. There must be someone, something here. _Jiyong_. The mechanism of the light is rusting, one of the big mirrored panes is broken, and he cuts his hand on it, ignores it, looking beneath – there. _Jiyong, Jiyong_. A compartment, built under it, labeled ‘Emergency Supplies’ in flaking tape. _Jiyong_.

He opens it.

When Daesung comes back, the house is empty. Quiet. He’d thought it was strange, because Jiyong is usually up on the lighthouse – a banner in the wind, his hair flying free, watching the waves, watching for Daesung. He’d thought to find him in the house, but there’s nothing. The headland is desolate, the tower echoes with his footsteps.

On the catwalk, he can hear the door banging in the wind, blown open. Inside, a bloody handprint on the glass, and the supply box flung open, the gun carefully resting on the picture, the ID, so they don’t blow away in the wind. The sealskin is gone. He knew it would be.

He takes the stairs back down two at a time, races across the headland, down to the bay, calling Jiyong’s name before his feet hit sand, keeps going until he’s up to his thighs in the water and he can’t go farther out than this, not safely. He yells until his voice is raw and his throat aches, yells until he can’t really breathe, until he’s sobbing, until he has to force himself to shore.

There is only silence, and the wind, and the pounding waves.

For a long time, that is all there is.

He goes out on the water the next day, and the next, and the next, desperate, forgets everything but searching for Jiyong, calling for him. There are no answers, there’s nothing but the waves lapping at the hull and the cry of the gulls.

After three weeks, he goes into the village. Youngbae doesn’t ask him what happened, just brings him home with him. The preacher lives in a little cottage, yellow and slanting a little against the back wall of the meetinghouse, and he feeds Daesung stew and sends him up to the loft to sleep. In the morning, he sits in the first row at the service, shoulders hunched, resigned, hears nothing that Youngbae’s saying, hears nothing that anyone says to him. He stays there for almost a week, silent, going through the motions, helps Youngbae with chores and errands around the village but speaks to no one, acknowledges no one. And then he goes home.

He feels like a ghost, purposeless, but he _has_ purpose, things that need to be done, not just for himself. He starts fishing again, to have something to do, lets himself be lost in the simple, methodical tasks, cleaning the fish, hanging some to dry and salting other batches in brine. He weeds out the patch of garden that Jiyong had planted by the road, tends it, waters it with the rain runoff. Anything to fill up his time. Anything to take up his time.

Out on the water, he hears his name.

It whispers along on the wind, echoes through the cries of the gulls, hums through the swells of the waves. The first time he hears it, he pulls in his nets and goes back to shore. The next time, he calls for Jiyong – still, there’s no answer. But he no longer expects one.

 _Daesung_.

He tries to ignore it. He really, really tries. But it starts to follow him, he can hear it when he lies in bed at night. _Daesung, Daesung, Daesung_. He stands on the headland, staring out at the water, and the whisper is quiet but it’s still there. It’s his imagination, he tells himself, that makes it sound like Jiyong’s voice. It’s all in his head. It’s all this desperate loneliness, this solitude, there’s no task that can completely take his mind away from the truth – he feels like his heart has been torn out.

He should never, he thinks, have hidden the skin. He should never have tried to keep Jiyong here, not without him knowing, understanding, wanting to be kept. But would he have stayed, if he’d known?

There is no use for these questions, these ifs. He’ll never know the truth now.

He tries not to count the days, the weeks, the months. The feeling dulls from a desperate ache, but it never truly goes away. The voice haunts him, in the wind, in the waves, and he dreams of Jiyong every night, only to wake alone.

He’s hauling in his nets, a substantial catch today, when he hears his name – _Daesung_ \-- as if Jiyong was beside him on the boat, speaking in his ear. He doesn’t lose the net, but he turns around to look, quickly—

There’s a seal, bobbing in the water, watching him.

Daesung stares for a long time, his lips parting slowly, shocked. It’s quiet, nothing but the soft sound of the waves, nothing.

He recovers himself, starts to speak, to say his name, to call for him—

The seal disappears again beneath the waves.

It’s like torment, and he can’t decide if it’s real or if he’s losing his mind. Why would Jiyong come to him? Would he? After what he’s done, he tells himself, he deserves this, whether it’s real or hallucination. He deserves to be punished.

He doesn’t see the seal again for days, and then he spots him – closer this time, watching him watch the horizon, eyes black and soft and sad. Another day, he sees Jiyong closer to the shore, while he’s up on the headland hanging out his washing. He keeps an eye out now, and he’s decided this must be Jiyong without any proof, without anything but the heavy weight in his gut and the ache of guilt, but it must be.

The preacher visits him often. He’s worried, Daesung knows, keeps hinting that maybe he should stay in the village more often, maybe he should move back, he’s sure someone else could take over the fishing, at least for now. Daesung keeps telling him it’s alright, not to worry, that he’ll be okay, he’s managing – but it’s not really true. The whispers haunt him, and as the weeks continue he’s seeing the seal more and more, watching him, always watching. He’s afraid to call out, afraid that Jiyong will disappear and won’t come back again. He’s getting tired, worn out, having trouble sleeping, and Youngbae’s visits last longer, as he tries to convince Daesung to come back with him, as he tries to convince Daesung to take better care of himself at least. He makes promises he won’t keep, until Youngbae leaves him alone again.

It’s been months. Daesung sits down on the beach, leaning back on his hands in the sand, watching the sun set over the water, bright and red like blood. He thinks, he should let go. Let Jiyong go. It’s better for them both. Jiyong belongs to the sea, and he…

He deserves to be alone. After everything he’s done.

The sun is almost gone, and Daesung lets his head fall back. The sky is a purple-blue stretch of velvet, scattered with stars, and he imagines what it looked like before, long ago, with the steady turn of the lighthouse beacon passing overhead, ships moving out on the water. He closes his eyes, imagines cars out on the road, and the houses in the village hale and whole, and the city in the distance bright with lights and whirling with life, instead of an imposing ruin. He still places himself here – imagines Jiyong is waiting for him up in the house, and maybe tomorrow they’ll go out into the country, visit his mother and father, and their house will be a simple one-story, just the two of them, not a ramshackle cabin inside a compound. His sister will come too, and—

The daydream falls apart. He can’t remember what she looked like, besides the photograph (them as children, sitting with their mother, their father standing beside them, the newly built compound behind them). He can only remember her at the end, can only remember her hair matted with blood, scratches on her face and hands, breaking glass, a scream, can only remember the horror in her eyes when she died.

The waves lick at his ankles, and Daesung jolts a little out of his reverie. It’s dark, and the wind off the water is cold. He moves slowly to get up, listening to the waves, his thoughts still far away, and only becomes aware distantly that he’s being watched. It’s too dark, though, and he sees nothing when he looks around, only shadows on the water. The walk back up the rickety stairs, across the headland to the house, would be nothing on any other night – he knows this place by heart, doesn’t need to see to know where to go -- but something is wrong tonight, something is different. He goes as quickly as he can, and inside he washes off the sand, changes into something clean, curls up on his couch with a book, the lantern flickering beside him.

He’s standing out up on the tower (how did you get here?). It’s night, later night, the moon a massive blue-white wheel in the sky (but it was the new moon tonight), painting streaks of light across the water. He looks down, and the headland seems miles below him, the ocean even further. A light filters past him. Then again. He turns – it’s the beacon, rotating slowly, filling the glass enclosure with light. And Jiyong is standing there, just as he looked the last time Daesung saw him – wearing jeans he patched himself, and one of Daesung’s shirts, white and too big on him, his brown hair tied back at the nape of his neck with a length of blue ribbon. Daesung moves, slowly, to open the door in the glass. It’s terribly bright. There is something dark at Jiyong’s feet, heavy, and Daesung should know what it is, but his eyes skitter away from it.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

Jiyong’s head tilts to the side, slow. His eyes are all black.

Daesung grits his teeth and looks away. “I know it was wrong.”

“You miss me,” Jiyong whispers, and there is a frown in his voice, and when Daesung looks up he can see it pass across his expression too, brows furrowing, confused.

“Of course I do.”

Jiyong’s expression flickers again, confusion, mistrust, sadness.

“Jiyong,” he whispers, pleading, apologetic.

“You’re sorry.”

Daesung shakes his head. “I’ll always be sorry. It will never be enough.” He takes a breath. “I won’t ask you to come back. I understand. But I just, I want you to know – I love you.”

Jiyong’s eyes jump back to him, the frown more obvious now.

The light behind him goes out, and they’re plunged into darkness, the tower suddenly its rusting, dirty self once more, and Daesung looks around instinctively, startled, and when he looks back Jiyong is gone.

He wakes up.

It's morning, sunlight streaming through the curtains, and he’d fallen asleep on the couch, book fallen on the floor, the lantern burning low. He turns it off, carefully, picks up his book and sets it closed on the cushion beside him.

 _Daesung_.

He closes his eyes tightly. This has to stop, has to end. Maybe he _should_ move back to the village, let someone else take over here for a while. Maybe he should give himself up to the sea. Maybe that would gain him forgiveness.

“ _Daesung!_ ”

No (that voice isn't in his head) – he opens his eyes again.

There isn't another call, but he knows – he's pretty sure, almost certain, he knows what he heard. When he makes it to the door, Jiyong is standing in the bright sunlight, barefoot in the low green scrub that surrounds the house. He's taken clothes off the line, wash-worn jeans, Daesung’s shirt hanging open over his thin chest. The sealskin is draped over the porch railing. When he sees Daesung, he smiles – a little guarded, a little hesitant, but still there. Still bright.

“Jiyong,” he breathes out on a whisper, stepping out onto the porch, and Jiyong grins wider, more honestly, pleased and warm, and reaches up to push his salt wet hair back, stepping closer. 

“Daesung,” he says, and they're close now, he only has to take the three steps down off the porch to catch Jiyong in his arms, and maybe he shouldn't but he can't stop himself. The kiss is hard and deep and almost desperate, and Jiyong is breathless when they part, his eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

“I'm home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!


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